


If you go out in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise.

by patchsfallenangel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dudley Falls In Love With A Witch, Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Non-Canon Relationship, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Redeemed Dudley Dursley, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 15:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21077132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchsfallenangel/pseuds/patchsfallenangel
Summary: Dudley brings his girlfriend home to meet his parents. There, he finds out there is so much more to this woman than he initial thought. Will he be able to handle her secret? Will she be able to handle his parents?





	If you go out in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise.

Meghan Jones sat neatly on the sofa, her back ram-rod straight and her legs crossed sweetly at the ankles. She smoothed out the skirt of her dress which ended mid-calf before looking up to meet the gaze of her boyfriend’s father. The man, a short, round man with hardly any neck, eyed her skeptically from the up-right recliner adjacent. Meghan’s boyfriend sat next to her in total silence, his own body as stiff as hers. Meghan saw his finger twitch and she knew he was suppressing the urge to fidget – a habit, he’d told her, was very uncomely for those of his social stature. Ignorant of the rules of England’s upper-middle-class, Meghan accepted Dudley’s words and paid attention to his tips and tricks on their drive from London to Little Whinging.

Mr. Dursely, Dudley’s father who maintained a critical eye as the silence stretched on in a manner edging on painful, opened his mouth as if to finally speak when his wife walked into the room carrying a tea tray. Petunia, as she told Meghan to call her when she met them at the door just moments before, stood rigidly, as if unsure what exactly she’d just walked into.

“How do you take your tea, dear?” she asked Meghan.

“Black, one sugar,” Meghan replied, her voice echoing the Dursley’s faux-posh accent as if on reflex. She desperately wanted Dudley’s parents to like her. She accepted the tea from Petunia and glanced over at her boyfriend who was telling his mother his tea preferences.

“Just black tea for me, Mum. No sugar either.”

Petunia looked mildly shocked at Dudley’s strange tea preference – she was used to filling his cup with mostly milk and three sugars – but abided her son’s wishes, nonetheless. Mr. Dursley – he had not allowed Meghan to call him by his given name as his wife had done – eyed her closer still.

“She doesn’t have you on a diet, does she boy?” he said, sharply.

“No, Dad,” Dudley said, his voice strong though Meghan could hear the tiredness behind the words. “I’m just trying to make healthier decisions. My colleague, John—”

“It’s that damn city,” Mr. Dursley stated. “It’s turning you into a Nancy. And now this girl. Whatever happened to Elizabeth? She was of good stock.”

Meghan tried her hardest not the blanch at Mr. Dursley. _Good stock,_ she thought, _I can show you good stock, you great, old basta—_

“Dad, can we—”

“I thought we agreed that you would finish university and then come back here and work under me. You know there’s a management position just waiting for you, no need to keep this _assistant_ job. I mean, a cubicle? You could have a damned office by now!”

“I’m an assistant _manager_, Dad. It’s a good job and I like where I work. And Meghan—”

“And just what is it that you do, Miss Jones? It must be an important position to keep my son here in London.”

Meghan kept her posture straight and responded, “I’m an intern at a women’s fashion magazine, sir.”

“Yes, Vernon, you remember I bought a copy this week. The one with that actress on the front—oh, what’s her name?”

“An intern!” Mr. Dursley’s ears turned red. “You stayed in that over-priced shit-hole for an _intern_?”

“It’s a great opportunity for Meghan, Dad, and there’s a solid chance of her getting a feature writing job once her internship is up.”

Dudley looked over at his girlfriend with soft eyes. Meghan resisted the urge to reach up and cup his round face in her hand and pulled him down for a kiss. She was terribly in love with this boy. There’s was a whirlwind romance, at least that’s what her mother called it, having met just before graduating university and moving in together after three months of dating. It was moving in that made Dudley pop the question: will you come and meet my parents?

“Still, I—”

“Vernon, dear, do come and help me carve this chicken for lunch,” Petunia said suddenly, preventing the fight that was sure to break out any moment now. “I hope you two are hungry, I made stuffing and roast vegetables as well.”

Dudley smiled at his mother. “Starving, mum,” he said, mouthing ‘thank you’ at her while his father put all his effort into standing up from the recliner.

“Excellent,” Petunia said. “Why don’t you give Meghan a tour of the house while you wait for us to serve it up. I added a new rose bush to the garden, you should go and pick her something pretty.”

Meghan blushed at Petunia’s encouragement. Dudley, upon the exit of his parents from the living room, let out a long sigh and slumped against the back of the sofa.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re lucky I love you, Dursley,” Meghan joked. She stood up, thankful to stretch her stiff legs. “Now show me your bedroom so we can snog horrendously on your childhood bed.”

Dudley laughed and allowed Meghan to pull him to his feet. Leading her toward the stairs, he paused when Meghan stopped him abruptly. Dudley turned back to see what had caught her eye and saw that it was a picture of him and his family when he was a child, around six or seven years old. He stood tall and proud in front of his parents, a large grin stretching his lips into his chipmunk-cheeks. Beside him, in front of his mother, stood harry. He, like Dudley, was wearing a pair of black dress pants and a white dress shirt. Unlike Dudley, Harry’s clothes didn’t fit at all and he stood much short than Dudley did.

“Who’s he?” Meghan asked. She knew that face, it looked so familiar… She looked closer, seeing the tip of a scar on the boy’s forehead below his jet-black fringe… Wait—

“Oh, that’s my cousin. Harry.”

_Cousin?_ “Oh, I didn’t know you had a cousin.” _Cousin!?_

Dudley waved his hand nonchalantly to hide his discomfort. “Yeah, never mind him, he’s a freak.”

_Freak. _The word echoed through Meghan’s head and she stiffened visibly. Dudley, ashamed at sounding so much like his father, tried again.

“I only mean he’s different. Not like us.”

Meghan turned so her body was facing Dudley’s and, already knowing the answer, asked, “Different how?”

“Just, you know… Different.” Dudley shuffled uncomfortably. “He came to live with us when he was a baby and left when he was seventeen. I’ve never heard from him since. Could be dead for all I know.”

“He’s not,” Meghan said.

This time, Dudley tensed. “You know him?” he choked. “How?” Meghan stayed silent as if to say, _come on, you know, _and Dudley began shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Meghan reached out to take Dudley’s hand but he snatched it away. _Maybe telling your already-stressed boyfriend that you’re a witch after he just called his magical cousin a freak wasn’t the greatest plan, Megs…_

“I… I, uhh, need some air.” Leaving Meghan on the middle rung of his parent’s staircase, Dudley zipped down the stairs and went in the direction – Meghan presumed – of the garden.

Meghan looked at the family portrait again. “I can’t fucking believe it,” she muttered under her breath. “Harry fucking Potter.”

***

Dudley paced up and down his parents’ back garden for several long, strenuous minutes.

_A witch. My girlfriend’s a witch. The love of my life is a—_

“Dudley?”

Her voice came not entirely unwelcomed from the patio.

“Duds, can we talk?”

He remained silent but his legs and brain kept moving at lightning speed. _A witch. A witch. My girlfriend’s a—_

“Okay then,” she said, slowly, and began approaching him as if he were a skittish animal. “I’ll talk. You listen.”

The pacing remained, though Meghan noticed it had slowed some.

“I didn’t know you knew about all of this… stuff. I would have told you right away if I had. And I’m sorry it came out that way, but when you called Harry – your flesh and blood – a freak, well, I guess that just set me off.”

Dudley listened, but his mind felt so cloudy he wasn’t sure he was processing all of what she was saying.

“My grandparents… They called my dad a freak, too. They disowned Mum when she refused to divorce him.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Dudley finally asked in a low whisper.

Meghan moved closer to Dudley and took one of his hands in hers. “Of course! My dad waited until just before their wedding to tell my Mum but there’s no way I’d keep something this important from you for that long. Besides, we’re still so new—”

“We live together!” he hissed. “How could I not have noticed?”

“I don’t use magic,” Meghan said. “At least, not unless I need to. Once I graduated Hogwarts, I went to a Muggle university. I want to be a writer, you know that. I love my life. _Our _life.”

“Muggle?” he asked.

“Non-magic folk.”

“Like me,” Dudley accepted. “Will our kids be…”

Meghan’s lip curled into a small smile. “You want to have kids with me?”

Dudley nudged her shoulder with his arm. “You just said you wanted to marry me.” He gave the hand that still held his a tight squeeze. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take to process all of this,” he admitted.

“But will you be able to?” Meghan asked. “Process it, I mean. And accept it.”

“You don’t use magic?”

“Not usually,” she said, “But it’s still a huge part of me, Dudley. I’m not ashamed of who I am and I still have contact with the magical world. Most of my friends are people I met at Hogwarts.”

Dudley nodded. “So, Hogwarts. Is that how you know…” He didn’t – couldn’t – say his name.

“Yes,” she said. “Though we never spoke. I grew up hearing stories about him. About all he’d done. All he still does.”

Dudley blanched. “What?”

Meghan looked at Dudley for a long moment. “He’s Harry Potter. The boy who lived. The vanquisher of the Dark Lord. Saviour of the entire wizarding world.” Dudley’s face grew more and more confused. “Seriously, you didn’t know? But he lived with you all his life!”

“We never spoke about that stuff,” Dudley said, looking down at his feet. “Mum and Dad hate… magic. They want to be seen as this perfect, _normal _family.” He took a deep breath. “We were horrible to him. _I _was horrible to him.”

The couple let the air sit still and silent before Meghan broke it. “Can we overcome this?” Her throat burned as she swallowed back tears. “Will you ever be able to accept me for who I am?”

Dudley looked into her eyes. They shone with unshed tears and her nose crumpled as she tried her hardest to stay strong. _My girlfriend is a witch. The love of my life is a witch. The love of my—_

“I love you,” he said and he bent down to kiss her. Meghan’s arms flung around Dudley’s neck and she pulled him in deeper. Dudley felt his cheeks grow wet and pulled back to see Meghan crying. He wiped her tears away with the pad of his thumbs. “I love you, Megs. We’ll get through this. Together.”

Meghan pulled Dudley back down into another kiss.

“I think I’ll take your mum’s approach, though, and tell my parents _after _the wedding.”

The couple laughed. Even though Dudley’s brain was still processing what happened, how quickly his entire life had just changed, he was happy.

“One more thing,” Dudley said, pulling out of another kiss, “Can you… How’s… Can… Can you tell me how Harry’s doing? If he’s okay?”

Meghan smiled at her boyfriend. “Of course,” she replied. “Whatever you need.”


End file.
